Our garden: June 2014 (2)

Over the last week we’ve had equal amounts of success and failure in the garden. The raised beds in the back garden are full of sciarid flies (also known as fungus gnats). It seems the wet weather, broken guttering on the building next door draining into one of the beds and then some heat has created the perfect breeding conditions for the little buggars. So I’m focusing on all the nice things happening in the front garden instead!

The Hebe Sapphire is flowering, which seemed to happen overnight. These flowers are called Spotted Lady’s Thumb and I think they’ve come from the wildflower seeds we scattered. All the leaves have a small brown spot in exactly the same place. I was nosing around the flower bed and spotted this tiny orange flower, it’s only about 4mm long. I’m pretty sure it’s a weed but I’m leaving it in because I read that alot of flowers we regard as weeds are good for bees. I have no idea if this particular weed is beneficial or not but the flowers are nice. A friend gave me some red sunflower seeds. I lost the packet but I think they are similar to Velvet Queen. They’re only small at the moment but they are loving all the sunshine so hopefully they’ll be taller in no time. The final sowing month was the end of May, which was when I sowed mine, so I hope they grow quick enough to flower before the Summer is over. Do you remember the lupin bud I photographed last week? Well this is what it looks like now! Wow! And I’ve spotted another 3 small buds growing too. I feel like we have a proper cottage garden now the lupins are flowering 🙂 I bought these Stocks from Waitrose a couple of weeks ago. They make good cut flowers for indoors but they bring so much colour into the garden I’m going to leave them as they are. Lots of these purple flowers have been popping up in the garden. At first I thought they were some sort of fern and then these purple flowers appeared. After a bit of detective work I figured out they are called Phacelia. The bees absolutely love them! Another plant from the wildflower seeds. And these are our nasturtiums. I can’t believe the colour of them! I’m making a conscious effort to deadhead the rose bush regularly to keep the flowers coming. I know this rose is starting to fade but I really like the pink and yellow together. The campanula is full of flowers and is starting to spread and creep across the path now. It amazes me that 5 months ago we still had a bare patch of soil and how much everything has grown since then. Something good did come from our wet Winter and Spring afterall.

Such colour and variety Gemma – I love all the wildflowers – I need to get some wildflower seeds next year I can see!
Totally up for the Bee Count, off to read about that next, let’s get a plan together for the seed swapping too – that’s something we need to get on the case of 🙂
Amazing the growth in the past 5 months – lovely stuff – and you know what I am going to say now? Thanks for joining in again x

Your beautiful captures are making me miss cottage gardens! I’ve been also reading up how wild flowers including many that people just consider weeds bring back nature and wildlife as it should be to gardens.

I love how you know your stuff! Like how great is a flower called Spotted Lady’s Thumb!!! I want one now! I’m interested in your stocks. I was given some cut ones for my birthday and I really like them. Are they hardy, do they re-seed themselves I wonder?

You have a lovely selection of cottage garden plants and that lupin is gorgeous. I really want to grow some next year as they remind me of my childhood. Thanks for the Bee Count link, that is such a great idea – I’m going to download the app.

Wow beautiful shots of your garden a very country indeed 🙂 I think I need lupins in mine next year. I’ve grown nasturtiums this year from seed but my youngest (18 months) keeps pulling the flowers off them all!!! He’s relentless in his efforts! Hopefully next year he’ll be more self controlled 😉